Veauce De Sivola

Veauce De Sivola, a full brother to Reve De Sivola, ran a really encouraging race on his debut at Newbury last Wednesday when only just denied in the juvenile hurdle.

Captain Cardington quickly adopted his usual front-running tactics but he looked a little reluctant at times and he gave away ground at just about every hurdle, which meant that the pace was not as strong as it might have been and that the field was tightly grouped as they turned out of the back straight. Veauce De Sivola was green and he was obviously unsuited to the fairly steady pace. He got a little outpaced at the top of the home straight, possible more through inexperience than through a lack of pace. He had never raced before, whereas all his rivals had raced extensively on the flat and three of the other five had already run over hurdles. He ran on strongly from the second last though, he had to be switched coming to the final hurdle but he quickly came through between horses and only just failed to catch Seven Sign. Also, it was notable that Daryl Jacob struggled to pull him up after crossing the line.

It actually looked like he had got up on the line, and the way that the front pair pulled four lengths clear of the rest from the final hurdle off what hadn’t been a strong gallop was impressive. Given that Seventh Sign was an 88-rated flat horse for Tommy Carmody and that Alan King has a good record with his juveniles first time out, this was a hugely encouraging performance from Veauce De Sivola. Trained by Nick Williams, he should improve significantly for this first run, as a lot of the yard’s horses do. He will be interesting next time he runs with this experience under his belt, and he could well develop into a high-class performer in time.

16th January 2013